Yeah almost anything looks possible on paper but the reality of trying to get it off the ground is another story.
Ambots argue they Amway is not a pyramid scheme because they have actual products for sale. Overpriced, substandard products, but nevertheless an actual product for sale.
Amway’s own sales figures show that less than 4% of their sales are to people who are not registered IBO’s so the other 96% are IBO’s who are self consuming their own products or inventory loading. When the IBO’s are not self consuming their own products or inventory loading they are on a rabid quest to recruit others to do the same thing.
Self consuming, inventory loading, recruiting new cult followers. Pyramid scheme!
I argued with Ambot that I am not a salesperson therefore Amway is not a good business choice for us. I don’t have a sales type personality like many people who are not comfortable approaching a stranger and striking up a conversation and hope to sell them a house, a car, or a pair of shoes. Our upline told us we didn’t have to be good salespeople to make our riches in Amway. That was one of many lies told to us. Amway “independent business owners” are really commissioned salespeople and to some extent everyone has to sell either the Amway business module or Amway products.
Or those who can’t do either self consume and inventory load Amway products so they can get the PV and into a higher bonus bracket for paltry commission checks from Amway.
Ambot had been brainwashed by his upline to believe he didn’t have to sell Amway products to make it big in the business which is what he tried to convince me. What!? What do all those fucking board plans say? You make your money in Amway buying their products and recruiting other people who will also buy Amway products. You have to be good at selling Amway products and good at selling the business opportunity to convince someone else to pay $150 to sign up and spend $300 month buying Amway products to consume. In other words be good at selling hope and dreams. You have to also be good at motivating any downline you sign up not to quit and to keep buying Amway products and investing in the tool scam.
Seeing as how I’m not good at selling I was unable to sell Ambot on the truth that he was really a commissioned salesperson in a futile business venture. Nobody wants to buy Amway’s shitty overpriced products and no one wants to join the Amway cult. That has nothing to do with his sales ability. Its just that he’s chosen a lousy product to believe in and a lot of people in the states are already aware of the Amway scam.
Amway’s shitty reputation for overpriced substandard products and cult similarities makes it really hard to sell others on this poor business opportunity no matter how good a salesperson you are.
Anna
ReplyDeleteWhat you describe, has been the experience of countless individuals around the world who have been churned through the criminogenic organization known as 'Amway.' All these persons were de facto slaves - powerless and profitless commission agents doomed to failure, because they had been persuaded to consume a quota of effectively-unsaleable'Amway' wampum each month whilst wasting their own time, and money, trying to convert others to their own economically-suicidal belief in the viability of 'MLM'.
Unfortunately, wthout regular retail sales to public, the overwhelming majority of money that has continued to flow into the 'Amway' scheme, has come from the scheme's constantly-churning participants.
In reality, because 'Amway'-supplied goods, and/or services, have not been retailed to the public in significant quantities, they might as well have not existed from a legal or commercial point of view. In other words, the effectively- unsaleable 'Amway' wampum has merely been the camouflage for unlawful internal payments in a classic fraud based on propagating unquestioning belief in the economic fallacy of endless-chain recruitment + endless payments = endless profits.
The FTC charged 'Amway' with exactly what you describe back in the 1970s, but 'Amway's' attorneys convinced a naive, and/or corrupt, federal judge that the organization's fraudulent scheme had been completely reformed by the introduction of 'rules' which appeared to offer money-back guarantees and to oblige 'Amway' participants regularly to retail goods, and/or services, to the public.
Everyone, except the selectively deaf, dumb and blind FTC officials, knows that these 'rules' are absurd fakes which have simply never been enforced, whilst the 'Amway' bosses have poured millions of stolen dollars into the pockets of corrupt US politicians and legally-qualified US law enforcement agents.
The 'MLM' racket has always been potentially one of the most far-reaching political scandals in the history of the USA.
Most Americans now realize that 'MLM' in general, and 'Amway' in particular, are evil scams which have fed off ignorance and greed. This is why the 'MLM' cancer has lately been forced to move over-seas.
David Brear (copyright 2011)
David - good comparison to us being slaves. That's exactly how the upline treated us. Only my husband was the obedient one. Its pretty tough for the upline to order someone around that doesn't like you in the first place and would just as soon tell you to fuck off than do whatever you're being ordered to do.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the FTC will get Amway one day. There's only so long that company can hide behind lies. The Internet has given those lies worldwide exposure.
Anna
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the FTC has been a significant part of the 'MLM' racket since 1979. Indeed there are various current, and former, senior FTC officials (along with their political masters) who should be facing criminal investigation in connection with their refusal to enforce the law concerning money circulation schemes dissimulated as 'MLM income opportunities.' However, in reality, this federal agency should never have been tasked with investigating 'MLM' racketeering in the first place.
FTC involvement has been the equivalent of asking a bunch of timid insurance regulators to police a 'Mafia' protection racket, simply because the 'Mafia' bosses have organized their crime behind what they, and their aggressive apologists, insist are 'legally-registered, and legitimate, insurance companies'.
The FTC has the responsibility for regulating commercial corporate structures. In my experience, FTC agents are masters of the art of explaining what it is that they don't do. Obviously, they can't confess that they are moral and intellectual eunuchs who have no power, let alone desire, to stand up to devious racketeers who create labyrinths of corporate structures pursuing lawful, and/or unlawful enterprises, in order to prevent investigation and isolate themselves from liability.
In the end, the 'MLM' problem is part of a much wider question, namely:
Who exactly does the federal government represent - the people, or a minority of wealthy charlatans and would-be demagogues - revolutionaries dressed as 'conservatives' who have effectively taken power in the USA with a corporate coup d'etat?
David Brear (copyright 2011)
I bet the 4% of the sales who arent to ibo are probably to ibos family. Or platinum & above making up fake names or people so they qualify for commission cheques. Had a friend who was involved in herbalife and he baught garage full of diet products with fake customer list(to make it look more legit). He needed the fake customers to qualify for cheques.
ReplyDeleteDavid - I don't really have a good handle on the FTC but I'll take your word on that. Maybe they have bigger fish to fry. Or maybe the Amway fish is too big that no one wants to tackle it. I'm sure the FTC is just about like any other government agency you'll deal with. If we are lucky enough to actually get through on the phone to a real live person they spend most of the call telling you what they do not do.
ReplyDeleteColin - I'd say you're right. Most of the IBO's I know used a family member to place orders so they could have a customer but for the most part it was to buy products for themselves and have an address for free shipping as long as they spent minimum $75 and seeing as how Amway's products are so high priced it doesn't take long to get to that minimum! Signing up fake customers was another ploy that our upline advised us to do.
ReplyDeleteAndhra Pradesh High Court in India has effectively nailed the lies of Amway and held that the business model of Amway is illegal. By charging an entry fee to buy products, Amway is making easy and quick money without providing any service, the judicature held. And by charging renewal fee every year also, Amway is making easy and quick money which is illegal under the provisions of Prize Chits & Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978. Later the Supreme Court of India also upheld the judgement of Andhra Pradesh High Court.
ReplyDeleteIn essence, the Indian senior judges have come to conclusion that it is an illegal money circulation scheme.
Shyam, that's good to hear! Perhaps because India is not influenced by the US and US laws and any other US influence on this US company they can come to their own legal conclusions. India is hardly the only country where Amway is breaking the law. I hope they get banned for good there and everywhere else where there's a legal challenge. This evil has to be shut down. Enough lives have been destroyed all in the name of greed.
ReplyDeleteLOL, many of those commissioned sales people never earn a commission!
ReplyDeleteJoecool - we usually made about a $10 commission depends on how much Ambot spent buying Amway products in a month. Also he purchased items through a family member's account to help get the old PV up there and show he had a customer. Not to mention the free shipping. That paltry commission was not worth the hell we went through in Amway buying shitty products and being abused by the upline.
ReplyDeleteLOL @ the skeptics. Did you strive for both volume and potential IBO's or did you sit on your butt hoping to hit the first 90 day goals. Sounds like you had a poor upline due to poor research. How about this find a good moral based IBO team and go from there. In my books Amway > Herbalife...because I actually receive money from Amway due to a proper business structure and plan. Being an IBO without a plan will yield nothing. A good IBO team only gives you advice and tools...it takes the individual going out talking to people and showing them the benefits of being a customer or IBO. Pretty clear as 75 major chains are partnered with Amway.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - we're not skeptics. We're people who have suffered greatly both financially and emotionally from our involvement in Amway. Hmm our Platinum said Amway partnered with 2000 major stores. Only 75 now? That's a huge drop in the past couple of years!
ReplyDeleteI've actually been doing stuff with Amway on and off, and I feel like it's the training system that's the issue, not Amway. I was part of LTD, Leadership Training Development as it's called, and that's the annoying as hell part of it. That's the part that lies and tries to take your money. Amway itself is fine and I have a fun time selling their energy drinks on the side. I earn a profit on a sale, I get paid. It's simple. I've never had an issue with them.
ReplyDeleteMy upline and all this training crap is the problem... Or, was the problem. I could write a whole rant on that alone, but since I'm sleepy right now and lazy, I'll just say between all the Jesus talk, travel to these boring-ass conventions, and being told to buy your own crap instead of retail it and make money, you're going to end up blowing a fuck ton of cash. I know I did, which is why I figured screw it.
Buying $300 worth of your own crap just to get $4 back is insanely stupid. Some of the profit margins on XS products reach like $8. If I sell one case online that's already more productive and profitable than half of these robots lol.
I have no interest in having a "team". I don't want to deal with an upline telling me how to spend my own money. I don't want to spend all day trying to recruit people to do this either. I just wanted to do my own thing, and I am now. It's a lot better lol.
Jerome - you have a very good grasp of the bullshit which makes it amazing that you hang in there on and off with Amway. The various training systems and the antics of the ambots in their groups are what contribute to giving Amway a bad name. Amway does not take any action against the groups that flog their Amway training system. Does not respond to complaints or take action against the troublemakers. These are Amway's bread and butter after all. If they fire an emerald or platinum then that entire leg is eventually going to quit taking 25k/month with them and less profit in the bank account of Amway's owners.
DeleteSurely you can find a better business to run that doesn't come with a bad reputation.